Vesuvius-apalooza

Today was a day all about that crazy volcano Vesuvius and the town it covered, Pompeii.

This morning after about an hour-long winding drive from our hotel we arrived at the parking lot of Mount Vesuvius. Of course this was after passing four Italian trinket stands selling all sorts of Vesuvius stuff. Yes, you can buy an urn, little versions of the mountain (elevation 4,000 feet) six little gemstones in a box, and the obligatory Vesuvius wine. No, there are not vineyards in the crater.

We paid to park, paid to enter the park and began our climb. 30 minutes straight up hill. After huffing and puffing our way up, we reached the top. What an amazing view. Who knew Naples was so huge? The city sprawls for miles at your feet. Then there is the view of the Med. Stunning.

While we were up there Miss V coughed up a couple puffs of smoke for us. No hot lava, but enough for a great photo op. After an hour up there shooting pictures, and chatting with a couple of high school seniors from Boston we started our decent. It's always so much faster going down!

Now ... off to Pompeii. Pompeii was a town of 20,000 that lived just like a normal city would. There were street vendors, theaters, folding walls, kitchens, baths and even a sewer system that worked so perfectly that we copy it today. The cobble stoned streets (to us) were actually the water system in place in town. At most intersections you would find two to three large stones that people used to walk from one street side walk to another. The lower street (sewer system) was flushed daily so that people did not live in filth or disease. Sewer streets that were wide enough to accommodate horse drawn carts had the path of the cart worn into the stone (pictures included) the streets they didn't want carts to go down simply had had three tall marble slabs before they began making it impossible for a cart to pass. Carts were a standard size so that they could roll down the path and pass over the elevated walking stones.

Baths had heated floors as well as grooved walls and ceilings to capture moisture and run it down the proper channels. The richest man in town had a wonderful home with a large courtyard in the middle of his property. He had several mosaics in the property and lived a very nice existence in the Pompeii of 600 B.C. Check out the pictures of the items I mentioned. It's quite a place to visit.